He was in fact a poet without words; the more absorbed and endangered, that the springing-waters were dammed back into his soul, where, finding no utterance, they grew, and swelled, and undermined. – George MacDonald, ‘The Tale of Cosmo’¹ in ‘Phantastes: A Fairie Romance’ The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing…

“What a strange thing a mirror is! and what a wondrous affinity exists between it and a man’s imagination! For this room of mine, as I behold it in the glass, is the same, and yet not the same. It is not the mere representation of the room I live in, but it looks just…

She burst into tears, and, kneeling before him in her turn, said — “Cosmo, if thou lovest me, set me free, even from thyself: break the mirror.” “And shall I see thyself instead?” “That I cannot tell, I will not deceive thee; we may never meet again.” A fierce struggle arose in Cosmo’s bosom. Now…

As I recently noted in response to a blog post entitled The Birth of Modern Fantastic Literature – And the “King of the Fairies”, George MacDonald’s “extraordinary imagination and sensibility, together with the ideas I found in his fantastical works, once opened up whole new words of timeless wonder to me … and feelings unfelt before –…

Debates avoid, and rude contention shun; A woman’s with submissive language won. – Ovid, ‘Ars Amatoria’ II, transl. Thomas Yalden In the previous post in this series on seductive social skills, we considered four potent conversational keys for smoothly exploring a woman’s mind and facilitating a deeper getting-to-know-you conversation. And so, it’s time now to…

With just disdain she treats the haughty mind, ‘Tis complaisance that makes a beauty kind. – Ovid, ‘Ars Amatoria’ II, transl. Thomas Yalden In the previous post in this series on seductive social skills, we considered how to engage a woman you’ve just met in some scintillating small talk. And so, it’s time now to move…